Amazon has overtaken Walmart as the world’s largest company by annual revenue, taking the top position in the 2026 Fortune Global 500 and ending one of the longest periods of uninterrupted leadership in the ranking’s recent history.

Fortune announced the result on July 28, placing Amazon first, Walmart second and China’s State Grid third. UnitedHealth Group moved into fourth place, followed by Saudi Aramco, Apple, McKesson, Alphabet, CVS Health and China National Petroleum.

The ranking is based on total revenue for corporate fiscal years ending on or before March 31, 2026. Amazon reported net sales of $716.92 billion for the calendar year ended December 31, 2025, while Walmart generated total revenue of $713.16 billion during its fiscal year ended January 31, 2026.

The gap between the two companies was approximately $3.76 billion. That represents only about 0.5% of Walmart’s annual revenue, underscoring how closely matched the companies were despite their substantially different business models.

Amazon’s move into first place was driven by a considerably faster growth rate. Its revenue increased 12% from $637.96 billion in 2024. Walmart’s revenue rose 4.7% from $680.99 billion in the previous fiscal year. Amazon therefore added nearly $79 billion of annual sales, compared with an increase of roughly $32.2 billion at Walmart.

The result ended Walmart’s 12-year run as the Fortune Global 500 leader. Walmart’s long tenure reflected the scale of its grocery, general merchandise, pharmacy, warehouse-club and international operations. The company remains one of the largest employers and consumer-facing businesses in the world, with approximately 2.1 million associates and more than 10,900 stores across 19 countries.

Amazon’s rise, however, reflects the expansion of a more diversified commercial platform. The company began as an online bookseller but now operates a global retail marketplace, logistics network, cloud-computing provider, advertising platform, subscription ecosystem, entertainment business and growing collection of healthcare and consumer-device services.

Amazon’s online stores remained its largest individual sales category in 2025, generating $269.29 billion. Third-party seller services contributed $172.16 billion, while Amazon Web Services produced $128.73 billion. Advertising services generated $68.64 billion, subscription services contributed $49.62 billion and physical stores accounted for $22.56 billion.

Those figures illustrate why comparisons between Amazon and Walmart extend well beyond the number of products each company sells. Amazon receives commissions, fulfillment charges and shipping fees from outside merchants operating through its marketplace. It also sells advertising to merchants and brands seeking visibility across Amazon’s shopping and media properties.

AWS adds another large business with economics and competitive conditions that are distinct from retail. The cloud division’s revenue increased 20% in 2025 as customer usage grew, reaching $128.73 billion. AWS produced $45.61 billion of operating income, more than half of Amazon’s consolidated operating income of $79.98 billion.

Amazon’s North American segment generated $426.31 billion in sales and $29.62 billion in operating income. Its international division recorded $161.89 billion in sales and $4.75 billion in operating income, improving from $3.79 billion a year earlier. The international business had posted an operating loss as recently as 2023.

The combination of accelerating cloud demand, stronger retail profitability and the growth of advertising helped Amazon increase net income to $77.67 billion in 2025 from $59.25 billion in 2024. Its operating income rose 17%, even as the company substantially expanded spending on technology infrastructure and artificial intelligence capacity.

Amazon’s free cash flow declined to $11 billion from $38 billion, largely because purchases of property and equipment increased sharply. The company said the rise in capital expenditure primarily reflected investment in artificial intelligence. Fortune highlighted a planned $200 billion capital commitment for 2026, much of it directed toward AI and cloud infrastructure.

That investment cycle represents both a potential growth engine and an execution risk. Amazon is attempting to expand computing capacity rapidly enough to meet demand from enterprises developing and deploying generative-AI systems. Large upfront expenditure could strengthen AWS’s competitive position, but it also increases pressure on utilization rates, power availability, chip supply and future returns on invested capital.

The ranking nevertheless measures revenue rather than market value, profit, cash generation or return on capital. Amazon’s No. 1 position means it recorded the largest qualifying annual revenue total. It does not by itself establish that Amazon is the world’s most valuable or most profitable company.

Walmart’s second-place result likewise does not indicate weakening commercial relevance. The retailer’s consolidated net sales rose to $706.41 billion, while membership and other income brought total revenue to $713.16 billion. Operating income increased modestly to $29.83 billion from $29.35 billion.

Walmart generated $482.98 billion in U.S. net sales, $130.42 billion from its international segment and $93.02 billion from Sam’s Club U.S. Grocery remained the foundation of the domestic business, producing $285.48 billion in Walmart U.S. net sales. Health and wellness sales reached $69.55 billion, while general merchandise generated $115.06 billion.

The retailer has also developed a substantial digital operation. Walmart disclosed approximately $99.6 billion of U.S. e-commerce-related net sales, $35.8 billion from international e-commerce and $15 billion at Sam’s Club U.S. Those figures show that Walmart is no longer simply a store-based competitor, even though its physical locations remain central to inventory distribution, pickup and last-mile delivery.

Walmart is expanding higher-margin businesses including advertising, marketplace services, memberships, data products and fulfillment. These activities could improve its profit mix without requiring the company to match Amazon’s cloud-computing exposure. Walmart’s stores also give it an extensive network of fulfillment points located close to consumers, particularly in the United States.

The revenue contest is therefore likely to remain close. Amazon’s faster-growing cloud, advertising and marketplace businesses give it several routes to expansion that do not depend exclusively on direct merchandise sales. Walmart retains enormous scale in groceries and essential goods, categories that generate frequent customer visits and tend to remain comparatively resilient during economic slowdowns.

Future movements in the ranking may also be influenced by the companies’ different fiscal calendars and accounting models. Amazon generally records the full value of merchandise when it is the seller of record but recognizes only commissions and related service fees for many third-party marketplace transactions. Walmart’s reported revenue largely reflects direct merchandise sales, supplemented by membership and other income.

Fortune’s broader 2026 list showed that Amazon’s advance was part of a wider increase in U.S. corporate representation. The United States placed 141 companies in the Global 500, three more than a year earlier and the country’s highest total since 2008. Those companies generated an aggregate $15.5 trillion in revenue, an increase of 6%.

Greater China, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, ranked second with 122 companies. That was eight fewer than the previous year and the region’s lowest count since 2018. The contrast reflects stronger recent revenue growth among large U.S. technology, healthcare and distribution businesses, alongside slower economic growth and restructuring in several Chinese industries.

The companies in the Global 500 collectively generated a record $43.1 trillion in revenue, up 3%, and $3.4 trillion in profit, up 14%. Fortune said the businesses employed 70.2 million people worldwide and represented revenue equivalent to roughly two-thirds of global gross domestic product.

The data also indicated a high degree of concentration. The 50 largest companies accounted for 33% of total Global 500 revenue and 39% of profit. The top 100 generated 47% of revenue and 53% of profit, demonstrating how a relatively small group of corporations controls a disproportionate share of global commercial activity.

Technology was the ranking’s fastest-growing major sector. The list included 38 technology companies, four more than a year earlier. Their combined revenue increased by more than 20% to approximately $4 trillion, while profit climbed 36% to about $835 billion.

Alphabet became the most profitable company in the ranking with approximately $132 billion in earnings. Alphabet, Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft each generated at least $100 billion in net income. Together, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia and Meta Platforms earned $527 billion.

Amazon’s position also contributed to record results for the group commonly known as the Magnificent Seven. Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta and Tesla generated combined revenue of $2.3 trillion and net income of $608 billion in 2025. Six of those companies ranked within the Global 500’s top 30, while Tesla placed 116th.

Despite technology’s rapid expansion, financial companies remained the most numerous sector, with 123 entries. Energy followed with 77 companies, ahead of technology, motor vehicles and parts, and healthcare. Together, those five sectors represented 61% of the companies and 66% of the revenue included in the ranking.

The list also recorded 24 newcomers, including 13 companies appearing for the first time and 11 returning after at least a one-year absence. New entrants included EP Group, Galaxy Digital, WT Microelectronics, Advanced Micro Devices and Coupang, illustrating the growing representation of digital assets, semiconductors and e-commerce.

Amazon’s elevation carries symbolic importance because it places a platform-oriented technology and commerce company above the retailer that defined global corporate scale for more than a decade. Walmart’s leadership was built primarily on purchasing power, inventory management, physical distribution and high sales volumes. Amazon has paired many of those capabilities with cloud computing and digital services that can scale without an equivalent expansion in store count.

The ranking also demonstrates how infrastructure has become a central source of corporate power. Amazon operates infrastructure for physical goods through fulfillment centers and delivery networks, as well as digital infrastructure through AWS. Its advertising and marketplace businesses monetize the traffic and commercial activity moving across those systems.

Walmart is responding by making its own infrastructure available to advertisers, marketplace sellers and fulfillment customers. The strategic distinction is that Walmart’s ecosystem remains anchored in stores and consumer staples, while Amazon’s reaches more deeply into enterprise technology and online media.

For shareholders, the immediate importance of the ranking lies less in the title itself than in the growth drivers that produced it. Amazon’s narrow revenue lead could change from year to year, particularly if consumer spending, foreign-exchange movements or cloud demand shift. More consequential will be whether Amazon can earn adequate returns on its expanding AI infrastructure while sustaining retail margins and marketplace growth.

Walmart’s challenge is to preserve price leadership and grocery strength while increasing digital profitability and developing service revenue. Its extensive store network remains difficult to replicate, but the company must continue converting that physical scale into faster delivery, greater marketplace participation and higher-margin advertising and membership income.

The 2026 Fortune Global 500 therefore captures more than a change at the top of a corporate league table. It reflects the convergence of retail, logistics, data, advertising and computing into integrated commercial ecosystems. Amazon’s first-place finish shows that the world’s largest company by revenue can now be simultaneously a merchant, marketplace operator, logistics provider, media platform and critical technology supplier.